Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 130081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
“Yes, I know all that.” Davrik nodded. “She might not even want anything to do with me once I find her. But I must find her and rescue her. She is the only one left—in every other universe my beloved Sonya boarded a shuttle from the Mother Ship, intending to go visit her family back on Earth. In every other universe—other than this one—the shuttle lost power and she died in the crash.”
He swallowed hard—it was difficult to talk about the horrible accident that had taken his mate from him, but necessary so they could understand his urgency.
“I see.” Commander Sylvania nodded thoughtfully. “Well, we will help you in every way we can, of course. But I’m afraid the Scourge have put an energy net around the Earth which we so far haven’t been able to penetrate. So if she’s down there, we’ll have to wait until the net drops to let another ship in or out before we can swoop down and scoop her up.”
“But she’s not on Earth—not anymore,” Davrik said quickly. “I saw her being taken off Earth by a Saurian slaver ship very recently.”
“Oh!” Commander Lan’ara gasped and her lavender skin went so pale it was almost white.
“What? What is it?” Davrik asked anxiously. He hoped she wasn’t still picking up his emotions and feeling them as her own. He wouldn’t wish the anxiety and pain he felt when he thought of his beloved Sonya on anyone.
“It’s just that Lan’ara is Dream-sharing with a human male and he also was taken off of Earth in a slave ship,” Commander Sylvania explained. “In fact, we were going to try and track the emissions signatures of all the ships that have left Earth in the past twelve hours to try and find him.”
“You said it was a Saurian slaver ship?” Commander Lan’ara asked, seeming to recover herself somewhat. “Because that was what I saw in my dream—a huge, scaly Saurian slaver paying one of the Scourge as the prisoners were marched on board.”
“Did one of them have brown skin?” Davrik asked anxiously. “My Sonya, her skin is a warm, beautiful brown. She has long black ringlets that hang down to the small of her back and big, chocolate brown eyes. She loves chocolate—or at least, my Sonya did,” he added, wistfully.
Carefully, he withdrew a small holo disk and held it in the palm of his hand. A flick of his thumb and a holo of Sonya, only about twelve inches high, appeared hovering above the coin-sized disk. It had been taken only a few days before her death and she was laughing and smiling, with her hands on her beautiful full hips.
“Yes! Yes, I saw her—I’m sure of it!” Commander Lan’ara nodded eagerly as she looked at the holo. “She was in line, three prisoners behind Nate! Your mate and mine—they’re on the same ship!” Then she paused, blushing a deep purple. “Well, at least, he will be my mate if I can find him and heal him. And if he wants me,” she added quietly.
“This must be the will of the Goddess,” Commander Sylvania said firmly. “She must intend for the two of you to work together, in order to find and rescue your mates.”
“I’d be more than happy for any help,” Davrik said at once. Though Commander Lan’ara was petite by Kindred standards, he was certain that having an Empath along on his quest to find Sonya would come in handy.
“I’d be happy for help as well,” Commander Lan’ara said quietly. She still looked rather flushed, Davrik thought.
“Then what are we waiting for? Come on—let’s go find that ship!” Commander Bairdida exclaimed.
Davrik felt a rush of relieved excitement—finally, it was happening. Finally he was going to see his Sonya again!
FIVE
DAVRIK
He was considerably less excited three solar weeks later. They had found the trail of the ship which they believed was carrying both his own mate and Lan’ara’s…and then they had been led on what the humans called a “wild geese chase” or something like that, Davrik thought bitterly.
The ship had seemed to go in circles and every time they thought they were going to catch up, they lost the trail and had to stop and find it all over again. At last they had followed it to the worst possible place—the Flesh Bazaar.
“Well, this is what I was afraid of,” he muttered, as he pulled his long-range shuttle into a docking space near the entrance of the massive complex. “In my universe this is the biggest slave center in the galaxy.”
“It’s the same here,” Lan’ara confirmed grimly. “Nate and Sonya must have been brought here to be auctioned off. But unless we’re very lucky, they’ve already been sold to the highest bidder by this time.”
“Well, we know the owner of the ship was a Saurian called Grieb’lick,” Davrik said. (This was knowledge they’d picked up at a space station during one of their stops to find the trail again.) “We just need to find where he sells his slaves and hope they can tell us who Sonya and Nate were sold to.”